Oil and gas prices are now in the economic danger zoneOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\nFrench finance minister Roland Lescure said the group, which met virtually with the head of the International Energy Agency on Monday, was \u201cnot there yet\u201d on a decision to tap emergency petroleum reserves held by IEA members.<\/p>\n
People familiar with the discussions said G7 energy ministers were expected to meet on Tuesday. \u201cThat is where action would be decided,\u201d said one person familiar with the talks.<\/p>\n
One US official familiar with the discussions expressed optimism that action could be taken soon after the energy meeting.<\/p>\n
Brent crude oil has surged nearly 40 per cent since the start of the war to surpass $100 a barrel for the first time in four years, with much of the oil produced in the Gulf trapped by Iran\u2019s threats to the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Brent leapt to almost $120 a barrel in early trading, with the latest jump coming as the largest Gulf producers, including Saudi Arabia, start reducing production as they start running out of storage.<\/p>\n
But Brent\u2019s gains later eased and by the afternoon in London it was trading up just 5.9 per cent at $98.20 a barrel.<\/p>\n
Fatih Birol, head of the IEA, said there were \u201csignificant and growing risks for the market\u201d adding that conditions had \u201cdeteriorated in recent days\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition to the challenges of transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a substantial amount of oil production has been curtailed,\u201d Birol said.<\/p>\n
Under the IEA programme, 32 member countries hold about 1.2 billion barrels in strategic reserves that can be tapped in an emergency, though this has been done only five times since the agency was founded following the Arab oil crises of the 1970s.<\/p>\n
The G7 ministers said in a joint statement that they \u201cdiscussed the current conflict in the Middle East, its impact for regional stability, global economic conditions, and financial markets, and the importance of secure trading routes\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to closely monitor the situation and developments in the energy markets and will meet as needed to exchange information and to co-ordinate within the G7 and with international partners,\u201d they added. <\/p>\n
Ahead of the meeting, one person familiar with the situation said some US officials believed that a joint release in the range of 300 million-400 million barrels \u2013 amounting to 25-30 per cent of the total reserve \u2013 would be appropriate.<\/p>\n
EU economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the conflict could have \u201csubstantial stagflationary shocks on the global and European economy\u201d if it extended beyond \u201ca couple of weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n
If shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure continued, higher energy prices could harm the broader economy, Dombrovskis cautioned, warning of the potential need for tighter monetary policy if inflation rises.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to work to de-escalate this conflict as soon as possible … The sooner it happens, the more contained the impacts on the economy,\u201d Dombrovskis said. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"G7 finance ministers said they would take the \u201cnecessary measures\u201d to tackle the surge in oil prices but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,969,37635,61,11829,60,150432,6000],"class_list":["post-337388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-energy-crisis","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}